General Application Structure

The web application is where most of your coding occurs. This consists of all of the JavaScript / TypeScript, SASS / CSS, and HTML that you write when you develop an Ionic application, along with any other static assets that your application references such as icons and images.

The native application is generated by Cordova. This application provides the interface between the web application and the native OS via a web view.

The native plugins are a bridge between the web application and specific APIs in the native OS.

Changes that are Binary Compatible

So long as only items that have been changed are contained within the "Web App" portion of the Application Architecture, the application is still "binary compatible" and the update can be delivered via the Ionic Pro deploy service. This includes:

JavaScript / TypeScript logic

SASS / CSS styling

HTML layout

Assets (Images, Icons, static JSON files, etc)

Changes that are not Binary Compatible

If you change any items that are outside of the "Web App" portion of the Application Architecture, the application is no longer "binary compatible" and must be repackaged and resubmitted to the app stores. For a typical Cordova application, this would typically be the result of either upgrading a plugin or adding a new plugin.